All North and Latin American rights to Stan’s Wolf Creek have been licensed to Lionsgate.The announcement follows last month's news that Fox UK had picked up the British rights to the original six-part series, based on the 2005 movie of the same name. Stan CEO Mike Sneesby said Wolf Creek was a “premium Australian drama made for a global audience”.“The Lionsgate deal is one of the biggest international distribution deals for an Australian show. By generating significant licensing revenues for our Stan Original Series we are able to reinvest into the local production industry,” said Sneesby. Wolf Creek has been Stan’s most successful premiere so far, with the series exceeding 500,000 views within days of its launch.Stan’s chief content officer Nick Forward told IF last month that international interest in Wolf Creek was initially piqued when distributor Banijay Group took it in April to MIPTV, the television buyers' market in Cannes. Wolf Creek is a Screentime (a Banijay Group company) production in association with Emu Creek Pictures.International sales are being handled by Zodiak Rights, the distribution arm of Banijay Group, with the Lionsgate deal brokered by Zodiak Rights’ Andreas Lemos, VP of sales and acquisitions

The Secret River is a two-part television series based on the novel of the same name by Australian author Kate Grenville. It provides a devastating account of the brutality of life for first white settlers in Sydney and along the Hawkesbury River, and for the Aboriginal people whose land was overrun and whose people were killed in the process of this emphatic desire for land ownership. Indeed the difference between cultures portrayed is much about the difference between living with one’s natural surrounds and fighting against them, a lesson we still often fail to grasp.

Australian composer, Burkhard Dallwitz is used to the ‘fighting against’ scenario in his screen scoring having written the soundtrack for Underbelly. He also wrote the music for the menacing Truman Show collaborating with Philip Glass and picking up a swag of awards including a Golden Globe. Dallwitz is used to writing edgy, highly rhythmic scores. His approach to The Secret River is quite different.Here the music is often sparse and still. However in the overture ‘Our Hawkesbury’, the melody and lush strings with Irish flute and bodhrán-like drumming capture the Celtic stamp of ownership the new arrivals desire. It is appropriately majestic and expansive, in many ways suggesting the ending in addition to the beginning. The final scene is of the new settler couple we have followed throughout surveying their English-like property with its clipped grass, ornamental fountain and circular driveway. It is such an incongruous image given the beauty of the surrounding eucalypts and scrub and the horror of the carnage we have witnessed that has made this stately home a possibility. And then one thinks of one’s home in the burbs.It is with the protagonists’ interactions with the Aboriginal people who dwell around the Hawkesbury that the music changes. Dallwitz uses steely harmonics and sonorities with short melodic riffs to great effect. He employs piano, violin and cellos drawing on natural harmonics and drones in the music’s vertical organisation. The music is both warm and unsettling and perfectly captures the ambivalent relationship between original and new inhabitants who initially try hard to coexist.

Dallwitz loves new tone colours and his ‘The Promise’, reflecting an assurance given by the husband to his wife that they will return to England in five years if things don’t work out, uses an old Tom Waitsesque piano to highlight the wife’s unrealistic longing for ‘home’. He brings back this sound quite frequently. In the gathering held at the couple’s initially scant setting, the pipes, piano, military drum, bodhrán and violin keep the new families warm as they dance around the campfire.There are times when Dallwitz combines the busyness of the new settlers planting crops, setting up home against long, metallic drones of the surrounding environment and this is most effective.In the build-up to the climactic massacre, in, for example, ‘My Place’, Dallwitz develops an unsettled feel again through held metallic harmonics, clashing strings and a deep, deep drone. The harmonic sustenance rises into the surrounding space. It permeates everywhere. ‘The Massacre’ is an exaggeration of all these themes, everything moves slowly, resolutely and the piano provides a feeling of utter grief edging up from a major melodic third to the fifth against its minor tonality in the left hand.Since the ‘hero’ has, at times, shown warmth and caring to the Aboriginal people, it is greed, ultimately, the need for more and for it to be ‘mine’ that is irreconcilable. The son is an observer of the aftermath, the carrier of his father’s ‘secret’ and he will never forget or forgive. And so in ‘I See you Dickie’, Dallwitz indicates the length of time that he and his father will carry this burden. Again, it is pure mourning, pure loss.

How does Archie Roach and Shane Howard’s final duet in A Secret River help ameliorate this tragedy? It doesn’t. But they write and make music together as they have done for a lifetime now. And here Howard is the husband, wishing he could turn back time, while Roach watches nature allow more flowers to bloom in the aftermath of the slaughter of Aboriginal people.

Wolf Creek, a six-part drama series, is a psychological thriller set in the world that fans of the films will recognise – but this time things are different. At first the pattern is familiar: Mick Taylor targets an American tourist family to terrorise and destroy. But the tables are turned when 19-year-old Eve survives the massacre and starts to rebuild her shattered existence by embarking on a mission of revenge.Australian Lucy Fry, known to international audiences for Vampire Academy andMako: Island of Secrets, will star in the lead role of Eve. Currently based in Los Angeles, Fry will be seen in a string of US film and TV roles next year, including the highly anticipated TV adaptation of Stephen King’s 11/22/63 alongside James Franco and the thriller 6 Miranda Drive directed by Greg McLean. She also stars in the upcoming Australian feature film Now Add Honey with Portia De Rossi.John Jarratt (Wolf Creek 1 & 2, The Last Outlaw, Picnic at Hanging Rock) will reprise his role as Mick Taylor, alongside an outstanding cast including Dustin Clare (Strike Back, Anzac Girls, Spartacus: War of the Damned), Deborah Mailman (Offspring, Redfern Now, The Sapphires), Miranda Tapsell (Love Child, Redfern Now, The Sapphires), Jessica Tovey (Wonderland, Dance Academy, Home & Away), Jake Ryan (Wentworth, Fat Tony & Co, Underbelly: Razor) and Richard Cawthorne (Catching Milat, Fat Tony & Co., Bikie Wars: Brothers in Arms).Nick Forward, Stan’s Content and Product Director, said: “Wolf Creekis a truly world-class production featuring international-calibre talent and helmed by two of Australia’s finest directors, Greg McLean and Tony Tilse. We can’t wait to bring this new Stan Original series exclusively to our subscribers next year.”Creator and Executive Producer, Greg McLean, said: “I am thrilled to be collaborating with Stan and the Screentime team to bring Wolf Creek to audiences around the world. I’m excited to work with such a talented group of individuals and delve deeper into the dangerous world and character of Mick Taylor, once again portrayed by John Jarratt.”Wolf Creek is a Screentime (a Banijay Group company) production in association with Emu Creek Pictures, financed with the assistance of Screen Australia and the South Australian Film Corporation. International sales are being handled by Banijay International. Peter Gawler and Felicity Packard are the writers on the series, which is directed by Tony Tilse and Greg McLean, and produced by Peter Gawler and Elisa Argenzio. The executive producers are Greg Haddrick and Greg McLean with Jo Rooney, Andy Ryan, Nick Forward and Rob Gibson.Emmanuelle Namiech, Managing Director, Banijay International, said: “Wolf Creek is a unique event- scripted series with high-quality talent in front of and behind the camera. We are proud to launch our drama strategy with this successful franchise.”Graeme Mason, CEO of Screen Australia, added: “This is an incredibly exciting time to be in TV and we commend Stan for committing to such a high production value, completely Australian-made series. Screen Australia support underpins 50 per cent of all narrative Australian TV content and we are delighted that Wolf Creek represents our first made-for-streaming commercial commission. Wolf Creek is a must-see for 2016.”The series will be shot in South Australia, featuring striking Outback landscapes.South Australian Minister for the Arts, Mr Jack Snelling, said: “We are delighted to again secure the local production for Wolf Creek. South Australia has outstanding locations, talented cast and crew, and a government committed to supporting local production and creating jobs in the screen production industry.”The 6 x 1-hour series will premiere exclusively on Stan in mid-2016, with all episodes made available at once, making Wolf Creek a binge-watch TV event that will thrill viewers in Australia and around the world.

Received the 2015 Screen Music Award for Best Music for a Mini-series or Tele movie for THE SECRET RIVER.

Congratulations to Shane Howard and Archie Roach who also received a Screen Music Award for their song'A Secret River' in the category of Best Song written for the screen.

APRA Press release:

The two-part television series based on Kate Grenville's best-selling novel also delivered an award on the night to multi-award-winning screen composer Burkhard Dallwitz for Best Music for a Mini-Series or Telemovie. Burkhard’s composition movingly tells both of the beauty of the Hawkesbury's landscape and the savagery at the heart of The Secret River tale.The collaboration of musicians Shane Howard and Archie Roach AM drew a well-deserved award for Best Original Song Composed for the Screen for A Secret River for The Secret River.

Nominated for the 2015 AACTA Award for Best Original Music Score in Television for THE SECRET RIVER.THE SECRET RIVER has received a total of 8 AACTA nominations.​The awards will be announced in Sydney on the 30th of November.

Received a nomination at this years Screen Music Awards in the category of Best Music for a Mini-series or Tele-movie for my score for THE SECRET RIVER. Shane Howard and Archie Roach also received a nomination in the category of Best Song written for the Screen for their original song 'A Secret River' also for THE SECRET RIVER.The 2015 APRA/AGSC Screen Music Awards will be held on November 12th at the Melbourne Recital Centre.

June 13, 2015 The Weekend Australian, Graeme Blundell, First WatchSeven years in the making, the television adaptation of Kate Grenville’s best selling and highly celebrated colonial-era “first- contact” novel The Secret River has arrived, and does it full justice. It’s an epic tragedy in which a good man is compelled by forces he cannot control to participate in a crime in which terrible things happen. The tragedy is the inevitable result of what Grenville calls the “total misunderstanding and mutual lack of comprehension, particularly regarding relationship to land”, between the Aboriginal people and the early settlers.The Booker-nominated novel has been adapted into this seriously good television miniseries by two of Australia’s most talented screenwriters, Jan Sardi (Oscarnominated for Shine) and Mac Gudgeon (Killing Time), and directed by the accomplished Daina Reid (Paper Giants: The Birth of Cleo) across two enthralling episodes. It’s a searching exploration of character and the shadow cast by the fear, violence and the individual isolation of the early settlers.It will leave you moved, if uncomfortable, and like producer Stephen Luby, you might find an urgency to tell the story to as many people as possible if they don’t see it. “I wanted others to experience the insight and empathy that it had evoked in me,” he says of reading the novel in 2006. “An illumination not of historical facts and social issues, but into the profound feelings and pressure faced by all ‘the players’, both indigenous and white, in the early days of European settlement in this country, and which still e choes among us today.”Beginning in 1805, it follows poverty-stricken Thames waterman William Thornhill (Oliver Jackson-Cohen), who begins a life sentence in the penal colony of NSW assigned to his brave if obdurate wife, Sal (Sarah Snook). He finds work as an oarsman on Sydney Harbour while Sal establishes a rum stall, eking out a living in grog, the true currency of the colony.Australia is no fair princess of a place but born and bred as an ill-favoured by- blow of the squalor and criminality of 18th-century industrial England and the poverty of Ireland. It’s a system dominated by the savagery of the lash, brutalising the community of officers, clergy, officials and settlers, and life for Will and Sal begins as a barren jail in a harsh, strange land.Six years later, Will is pardoned and as an “emancipist” (a convict given an absolute or conditional pardon, or whose sentence had expired and who could then could own land and assert themselves in the same way as the free) becomes entranced with the idea of actually owning something for himself and his family. For him Australia becomes a miraculous home of great expectations; Sal, though, dreams only of a return to London.Discovering the rock-and-forest-hidden mouth to the secret river of the title (the Hawkesbury in fact, its course hidden from the first explorers) in the company of another ex-waterman, the soft-voiced bear of a man Thomas Blackwood (Lachy Hulme), he is entranced with the possibility of owning land of his own. He spies a plot he calls Thornhill’s Point, turning to the land to stake a claim for equality in the emerging new social order.But after the family has sailed north from Sydney, it’s clear that shaping the environment, changing the face of the land, is fraught with difficulties. His attempts to cajole the local Aboriginal people, the Dharug, are clumsy and he seems incapable of understanding how whites might live with blacks. “If you take a little, you have to give a little,” his friend Blackwood constantly impresses upon him. He is equally uncomfortable with the divisive racism of the other settlers along the river.The production is distinguished by an almost musical interweaving of themes, carried by Burkhard Dallwitz’s great score, all strings, piano, flutes and whistles. It’s as though Reid and her writers have refused to pedestrianly transpose whatever was transposable from the novel but have found daring cinematic equivalents. Bruce Young’s photography is a luscious scenic tapestry of muted colour and light, often verging on the abstract. His cameras capture both the hollowness and openness of space, the oppressive immovableness of the landscape, as well as the illusion of freedom offered by the river.Reid and her estimable collaborators (the production design of the distinguished veteran Herbert Pinter is especially impressive) gets the spell of the bush just right, that matrix of sentiments and ideals, that almost religious mystique that would in time become a symbol of a distinctive national character.The struggle with the recalcitrant land has rarely been dramatised with such resonance: the loneliness of bush life and the way the early settlers who came to change and subdue the land were themselves changed by it in the end, and compelled to submit to its demands.And the sense of the Aborigine as spiritual superior is palpable through the series, majestically conveyed in the mesmerising performance of Trevor Jamieson as Gumang, or Grey Beard, the most senior elder of the Dharug tribe, all meaning invested in sacred land. All the performances are splendid. Jackson- Cohen’s Will is a man of shy, courteous modesty and he allows us to maintain our empathy for him even when we know of the heinous events that must unfold around him. Snook is an inspired actress; she can turn her face into a dozen different ones: beautiful, pain-riddled, ethereal and earth-motherish.Hulme flaunts his virtuosity once more with his Blackwood, an enigmatic and surprising figure who has found redemption in a new land, a performance of muted sadness and grace.And the writer and musician Tim Minchin is brilliant as the bitter and vengeful Smasher Sullivan, driven by his profound hatred of the Hawkesbury Aborigines, wonderfully and disturbingly malevolent. I was reminded of something Mark Twain said about this country, that it does not read like history but like the most beautiful lies: “It is full of surprises, adventures, and incongruities, and contradictions, and incredibilities; but they are all true; they all happened.”

Television previews: The Secret River transcends novelJune 3, 2015 SMH Melinda Houston TV critic THE SECRET RIVERNew series ★★★★☆ (4.5 out of 5 stars)Sunday, June 14, 8.30pm, ABCIt has been a long time since Australian television has attempted a big Australian origins story, but it's been worth the wait. It's also one of those cases (like The Slap) where the television adaptation manages to transcend what was already fabulous source material. Things start out ugly – as they do in Kate Grenville's novel – but one of the really lovely things about the screen version is its terrific light and shade. The hardships of first settlement are certainly powerfully evoked, but they're not dwelt on. And we get an equally visceral sense of its excitement and promise. Some scenes in this first instalment (I'm sure not by accident) are straight from the Heidelberg School, as much art as they are television. Indeed, the production values generally are superb. But like everything here, they're also perfectly balanced, never overwhelming or distracting from the story. Then there's the cast. There are certainly plenty of recognisable names but it's the intelligence of the casting that impresses. It's not about pretty faces or marquee names. Every actor absolutely fits the character: Sarah Snook's Sal, positively alight with energy; Trevor Jamieson's statesmanlike Greybeard; the little-known Oliver Jackson-Cohen, passionate and vulnerable as Will; and of course Tim Minchin's mischievously psychopathic Smasher. (And don't worry, Tim. We don't get to see your willy.) Perhaps what's most satisfying, though, is the way all these elements are brought together. Translating a rich, detailed novel – where the writing is as important as the story – is a slightly frightening task but everyone here has paid as much attention to their part in the process as Grenville has to her prose. The result is something that's not strictly factual – but that's an advantage. You're never wondering which bits are "true". Instead we have something that convincingly captures the reality of the period with nuance, a clear-eyed intelligence, and real emotional depth.

The Secret River☆☆☆☆☆ (4.5 out of 5 stars)June 11th, 2015 By David KnoxWith its spectacular setting on the Hawkesbury River, one could happily turn down the sound on The Secret River and enjoy the landscape scenery: the river, the bush, aerial shots -this is picture postcard stuff.But then you would be missing the story, crafted by writer Kate Grenville in her book of the same name and adapted here by the formidable duo of Jan Sardi (Shine, Love’s Brother, Mao’s Last Dancer) and Mac Gudgeon (Waterfront, The Petrov Affair, Killing Time). It is a story that strikes at the heart of our collective conscience: the dispossession of land from Indigenous Australians by early settlers.While Part I is predominantly set-up, Part II is packs a punch.British actor Oliver Jackson-Cohen as convict William Thornhill arrives in penal New South Wales and is lucky enough to be assigned to his wife, free settler Sal (Sarah Snook). With their two sons and baby, the family struggles with the harsh surrounds: a rundown, makeshift town, drunkards, corporal punishment, snakes. “It’s no place for kids to be growing up.”Will works hard as an oarsman transporting supplies on Sydney Harbour and befriending ex-waterman turned free settler Thomas Blackwood (Lachy Hulme). After six years he earns his emancipation which is all the freedom he needs to pursue Blackwood’s idea of a relocation up the Hawkesbury River. There, a new beginning may await them, if they are prepared to leave civilisation behind.On his first visit to the Hawkesbury, Will is captivated by the Australian setting, despite odd encounters with naked oyster farmer Smasher Sullivan (Tim Minchin) and the haunting, distant fires of Aboriginal tribes. Blackwood assures, it is possible to co-exist. “Give a little, take a little, otherwise you’re dead as a flea,” he advises.Will convinces Sal to a relocate the family to a parcel of land on the river under a 5 year plan, although she hopes to return the family to London.“It’s like something out of a dream, Sal,” he tells her.As he claims the land “before some other bugger does,” Will encounters local Aboriginals passing through. These are curious, if guarded exchanges by both although the children will be far more unfiltered in their expression. As he builds his farm through grit and determination, he will find his sense of ownership challenged in the extreme.Whilst these characters are fictitious they serve as a microcosm of a larger Australian history, and one that is steeped in blood and shame. Part II of Secret River is a powderkeg of emotion and brutality that makes it unmissable television.Oliver Jackson-Cohen is outstanding as an outsider coming to grips with his new world. Protective but fair-minded, he is pushed to the limits as a family man. Sarah Snook delivers another fierce performance as a woman who speaks her mind and shows flashes of reconciliation. On occasions I missed some words of dialogue due to their accuracy with accents, notably when under duress.Meanwhile Lachy Hulme adds gravitas as a mediator between two cultures. Trevor Jamieson as Indigenous elder Greybeard achieves so much with so little dialogue whilst Tim Minchin is suitably unlikeable as the wild, anarchic villain of the story, in all his nakedness. Other roles are played by Sam Johnson, Genevieve Lemon and Rhys Muldoon.Yet the Hawkesbury River is an allegory of itself: vast, deep, unforgiving. It is evocatively captured by cinematographer Bruce Young, including with drones, and matched with a score by Burkhard Dallwitz.Secret River is a complex, challenging tale for us as an audience. Part-action, part-social commentary, it has echoes of the colonial miniseries Australia used to produce in the 1970s and -hands down- it’s also the best thing Daina Reid has ever directed. Hold on for Part II.The Secret River airs 8:30pm Sunday June 14 and 21 on ABC.

Recording of the score for THE SECRET RIVER at Oaklands Studios in Melbourne and via 'source connect' in Prague with the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra. The score was recorded and mixed by Christian Scallan.Orchestrations and score preparation by: Erkki VeltheimViolin & Mandolin: Erkki VeltheimViolin: Lizzy WelshViola: Ceridwen DaviesCello: Charlotte JackeDouble Bass: Jon HeilbronHarp: Yinuo MuFlutes & Whistles: John BarrettBodhran: Rebecca SimpsonClassical Guitar: David HerzogPiano and Virtual Instruments: Burkhard DallwitzStrings performed by: The City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestraconducted by:Jan Chalupeckýrecorded by: Jan Holzner at Smecky Music Studio, PragueSession Supervision: James Fitzpatrick for Tadlow Music